"Standards of Excellence"

[Pete]

Inserted by Moderator taken from author's request:If I could modify my previous post in this thread I would (so please refer to Post 28 where I clarify what I meant to say.


At the ripe old age of 58 I'm coming to the conclusion that there is a fact I have to acknowledge if I'm ever going to be a mature grown-up. There are two kinds of people in the world, the self-promoting phonies with the big facades who by and large run the major institutions of our world and take most of the credit; and there are those who actually do the work. This "prancers and dancers" versus combat soldier thing has gone on from time immemorial and it always will. U.S. Grant was a notable exception to this rule.

There is only a stray and random chance that most of us will ever be put into a situation where we know exactly what to do and we earn the Medal of Honor or Victoria Cross. Chances are it won't happen. Thus this office politics stuff is what we have to live with.

Many of us are somewhere in-between those two poles of integrity and hard work. You might realize that a colleague is speaking the God's Own Truth about how a superior is a five-star horse's *ss but most of us decide to stay out of the line of fire for the purpose of self-preservation. Thus is comes down to staying in your own lane -- do your job well, keep your honor clean, but be careful about the things for which you would fall on your sword.

[bumperplate]

Good words from Pete. Wish I could live up to them - I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut when I see problems. People don't generally take it very well. Not sure if the problem is the message or the messenger.